Two of my favorite film directors, Guillermo Del Torro and Peter Jackson are working together to create a true-to-the-book film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I just found some fragments of an interview the two did for Empire Magazine. Take a look:
Jackson: We do cover some of the events earlier, like Thrain, Thorin’s father, and we’re sort of fleshing out the Hobbit and expanding it sideways, up and down. We just decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit and it allows us to make the Hobbit in a little more of the style, if you like, of the trilogy, too.
Del Toro: To make a movie of the Hobbit that didn’t go over three hours.
Jackson: You would be rushing along…
Del Toro: You would be losing iconic moments. The animated version avoids Beorn, who is a great character, and some people always feel that you should lose the Spiders (of Mirkwood), or this or that. We wanted to keep every iconic moment that was in the book and give it some weight.
Empire: How are you going to handle the dwarves, many of whom aren’t fleshed out in the book?
Del Toro: There is a very specific function that Gimli had in the trilogy. And technically and expressively, the dwarves in The Hobbit serve another. They have to become valiant, brave, sometimes funny – and yes, all of those were in Gimli, but there are moments in which the dwarves have to be tragic, or they have to be incredibly moving. Those dwarves, physically and dramatically, will work like three-dimensional characters that will as soon make you laugh as they will make you fear for their lives, or they will move you. Hopefully to tears, in some instances…
Jackson: We’re going to choose five or six, pretty similar to the ones that Tolkien spends a bit more time on in the book, and develop some quite interesting relationships between them and Bilbo. We don’t want them to be just Thorin plus 12 comedic sidekicks.
Jackson: What I think everybody has to get right in their minds is that we’re creating a Middle-earth that’s pretty much the same as the trilogy’s Middle-earth. Hobbiton is going to look like the same place. Hobbits are going to look the same. But it’s another guy going in with his own filmmaking style. That’s why I think this could be a better idea for him to direct these films than me. Let’s all see what somebody else does with Middle-earth. Let’s go in there with another director and another set of lenses and another cameraman, and see what they do with it. I think that’s exciting. He’s not pretending to be me. People have got to get that into their heads.
I’m glad they’re going for continuity but not compromiseing the book. Also, it’s good to hear that they’re going to focus on developing the dwarves, something that they had trouble with in the LOTR series with Gimli. Maybe they’ll use less prosthetics? After reading this I’m a lot more excited about this film than I was before!